I talked to some guys from the Messenger team and asked them why there were so few announcements about bots or Messenger in general on the main stage.

They said something along the lines of , "There are lots of FB teams that adjust their entire launch and announcement schedule around F8. Messenger is just not one of them. We have lots of big things coming up and are constantly improving the platform, but don't have as many big announcements lined up with this conference. You can expect to hear much more from us after the event."

They did, however, have on display some (I think) HTML5 games that were pulled up from within a bot as well as AR integrations with Messenger.

I did not attend F8 but the biggest announcement that I saw come out of it related to messenger was them FINALLY opening up in app purchase stuff for Instant Games. Didn't really see or hear anything about bots in general. The vibe I am getting is they seem to be caring a LOT for Instant Games and pushing that hard now while bots are getting left in the dust.

As a game developer I am REALLY excited to see so much love for this part of the platform but as a lover of bots in general it's sad to see such little love being given to them.